Granger scored a career-high 42 points, including 18 in the
fourth quarter, but Detroit held on for its eighth straight
victory against the Pacers, 114-110, on Friday.

The win snapped a three-game losing streak for Detroit. It was
the fifth straight loss for Indiana.

In the season opener on October 29, Granger scored 33 points in
a 100-94 win for the Pistons.

"They hit tough shots when we were right there in the game," an
obviously frustrated Granger said. "We came back but just
couldn't close it out. I'm getting tired of losing games and
it's just frustrating that we're so close like this.

"It's very agonizing. We come back the next day and watch the
film and highlight the stuff we could change and then we go out
and do the same things to lose the game."

Granger's performance was offset by 28 points from Detroit's
Richard Hamilton and 21 from Rodney Stuckey. Allen Iverson had
17 points and a season-high 12 assists.

"Coach (Michael Curry) said it would take a game where we'd have
to grind it out to get out of our slump," Iverson said. "We
buckled down and did everything we had to do to win this game."

In two of Detroit's last three defeats, the Pistons held
double-digit leads but let them slip away.

"I was thinking about that in the latter part of this game,"
Iverson said. "We had a big lead against the Sixers and the
same thing against the Wizards. I was hoping this wasn't deja
vu all over again."

Detroit took an 86-80 lead into the final quarter, but it didn't
take long for Indiana to tie the game 88-88 on a jump shot from
the top of the key by Granger with 8:41 left. Rasho Nesterovic
gave the Pacers their first lead since late in the first quarter
when he hit a jumper with 7:10 left to make it 92-90.

There were five ties and three lead changes before Rasheed
Wallace put Detroit ahead to stay, 104-103, with a 3-point
basket from the corner with 2:40 to play.

After Hamilton gave Detroit a 109-105 lead, each team missed a
shot before Granger hit a 3-point shot to bring Indiana within a
point.

Wallace then hit a pair of free throws to make it 111-108 with
14.6 seconds left. Wallace scored all seven of his points in
the final quarter.

Granger then drove to the hoop and hit an easy layup before the
Pacers fouled Hamilton, who hit 1-of-2 to make it 112-110 with
8.6 seconds left.

T.J. Ford had a chance to tie the game with a short jumper with
three seconds to go but Tayshaun Prince blocked the shot and
Antonio McDyess grabbed the rebound.

Arron Afflalo hit two foul shots to seal the victory.

"Any time you're struggling, you won't have a great game to
break it," Curry said. "Then when you do break it, there's a
sigh of relief and you can relax a little.

"The key for us tonight was that we made multiple efforts to
make plays on defense when we needed them."

Pacers coach Jim O'Brien was pleased with his team's effort.

"Our guys had a tough-minded second half and a tough-minded
fourth quarter," O'Brien said. "It was a big shot in the corner
by Wallace that we guarded well. We knew that we could get a
good shot with Ford at the end and we hoped that one of (the
Pistons) would come off one of our perimeter guys, but they
stuck on them and (the shot) didn't fall."

The Pistons shot 62 percent from the field in the first half but
couldn't pull away from the Pacers, who made 61 percent of their
first-half shots. Detroit led 63-57 at the half.

It was the highest-scoring first half for the Pistons, who
scored 62 points in a 107-97 win against Milwaukee on November
28.

McDyess made his return to Detroit an impressive one with 12
points in the second quarter. He hit six of his first seven
shots. The Pistons' guard tandem of Iverson and Stuckey scored
11 points apiece in the first half.

Detroit used a 19-5 run that bridged the first and second
quarters to take a 37-26 lead with 11:11 left in the first half.
Will Bynum came off the bench to score six points in the spurt.

Hamilton wasn't surprised by Granger's scoring outburst.

"He's like their first, second and third option on offense,"
Hamilton said. "I'm kinda disappointed he scored that many
points because we take pride in not letting anybody score like
that, but he's going to get his shots the way they play up and
down.